Effects of Natural and Artificial Surfactants on Diffusive Boundary Dynamics and Oxygen Exchanges across the Air–Water Interface

Comparing measurements of the natural sea surface microlayer (SML) and artificial surface films made of Triton-X-100 and oleyl alcohol can provide a fundamental understanding of diffusive gas fluxes across the air–water boundary layers less than 1 mm thick. We investigated the impacts of artificial films on the concentration gradients and diffusion of oxygen (O2) across the SML, the thickness of the diffusive boundary layer (DBL), and the surface tension levels of natural seawater and deionized water. Natural and artificial films led to approximately 78 and 81% reductions in O2 concentration across the surfaces of natural seawater and deionized water, respectively. The thicknesses of the DBL were 500 and 350 µm when natural SML was added on filtered and unfiltered natural seawater, respectively, although the DBL on filtered seawater was unstable, as indicated by decreasing thickness over time. Triton-X-100 and oleyl alcohol at a concentration of 2000 µg L−1 in deionized water persistently increased the DBL thickness values by 30 and 26% over a period of 120 min. At the same concentration, Triton-X-100 and oleyl alcohol decreased the surface tension of deionized water from ~72 mN m−1 to 48 and 38 mN m−1, respectively; 47% recovery was recorded after 30 min with Triton-X-100, although low surface tension persisted for 120 min with oleyl alcohol. The critical micelle concentration values of Triton-X-100 ranged between 400 and 459 µg L−1. We, therefore, suggest that Triton-X-100 resembles natural SML because the reduction and partial recovery of the surface tension of deionized water with the surfactant resembles the behavior observed for natural slicks. Temperature and salinity were observed to linearly decrease the surface tension levels of natural seawater, artificial seawater, and deionized water. Although several factors leading to O2 production and consumption in situ are excluded, experiments carried out under laboratory-controlled conditions are useful for visualizing fine-scale processes of O2 transfer from water bodies through the surface microlayer.

Knudsen type group for time in ℝ and related Boltzmann type equations

We consider certain Boltzmann type equations on a bounded physical and a bounded velocity space under the presence of both reflective as well as diffusive boundary conditions. We introduce conditions on the shape of the physical space and on the relation between the reflective and the diffusive part in the boundary conditions such that the associated Knudsen type semigroup can be extended to time [Formula: see text]. Furthermore, we provide conditions under which there exists a unique global solution to a Boltzmann type equation for time [Formula: see text] or for time [Formula: see text] for some [Formula: see text] which is independent of the initial value at time 0. Depending on the collision kernel, [Formula: see text] can be arbitrarily small.

Buoyancy-driven instabilities of partially miscible fluids in inclined porous media

This study presents a buoyancy-driven stability analysis in a three-dimensional inclined porous medium with a capillary transition zone that is formed between a non-wetting and an underlying wetting phase. In this two-phase, two-component, partially miscible system, a solute from a non-wetting phase diffuses into a porous layer saturated with a wetting-phase fluid, creating a dense diffusive boundary layer beneath an established capillary transition zone. Transient concentration and gravity-driven velocity fields are derived for the wetting phase while the saturation field remains fixed. Linear stability analysis with the quasi-steady-state approximation is employed to determine the onset of solutal convective instability for buoyancy-dominant, in-transition and capillary-dominant systems. The analysis of the problem leads to a differential eigenvalue problem composed of a system of three complex-valued equations that are numerically solved to determine the critical times, critical wavenumbers and neutral stability curves as a function of inclination angle for different Bond numbers. The layer inclination is shown to play an essential role in the stability of the problem, where the gravity-driven flow removes solute concentrations in the diffusive boundary layer. The results indicate that the horizontal porous layer exhibits the fastest onset of instability, and longitudinal rolls are always more unstable than oblique and transverse rolls. The inclination angle has a more substantial impact on stabilizing the diffusive boundary layer in the buoyancy-dominant than in the capillary-dominant systems. Furthermore, for both buoyancy-dominant and capillary-dominant systems, the critical times and wavenumbers vary exponentially with inclination angle ≤ 60° and follow the Stirling model.

Triple Diffusive MHD Casson Fluid Flow Over a Vertical Wall with Convective Boundary Conditions

In this article, we study, effects of triple diffusive on a mixed convective viscous flow of an MHD Casson fluid through a vertical permeable wall numerically with convective BC’s. The governing equations are modeled and derived for the triple diffusive boundary layer flow to examine the fluid's nature under the influence of thermal conductivity and solutal diffusivity. Using an effective and suitable similarity transformation, highly non-linear coupled PDE’s are reduced to a series of coupled ODE’s and are solved by the Shooting technique with the help of the integral scheme of Runge Kutta-Fehlberg. To know the fluid properties' behavior, a numerical computation has been carried out for the non-dimensional parameters, which control the flow and demonstrated through plots such as permeability, convective parameter, Casson parameter, and buoyancy ratio parameters of the physical system. In the absence of a few non-dimensional parameters, present findings are compared with previously published work to validate our numerical scheme and found to be in good agreement with up to six decimal places of accuracy.

Dynamic regulation of coral energy metabolism throughout the diel cycle

Coral reefs are naturally exposed to daily and seasonal variations in environmental oxygen levels, which can be exacerbated in intensity and duration by anthropogenic activities. However, coral’s diel oxygen dynamics and fermentative pathways remain poorly understood. Here, continuous oxygen microelectrode recordings in the coral diffusive boundary layer revealed hyperoxia during daytime and hypoxia at nighttime resulting from net photosynthesis and net respiration, respectively. The activities of the metabolic enzymes citrate synthase (CS), malate dehydrogenase, and strombine dehydrogenase remained constant throughout the day/night cycle, suggesting that energy metabolism was regulated through adjustments in metabolite fluxes and not through changes in enzyme abundance. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses identified strombine as coral’s main fermentative end product. Strombine levels peaked as oxygen became depleted at dusk, indicating increased fermentation rates at the onset of nightly hypoxia, and again at dawn as photosynthesis restored oxygen and photosynthate supply. When these peaks were excluded from the analyses, average strombine levels during the day were nearly double those at night, indicating sifnificant fermentation rates even during aerobic conditions. These results highlight the dynamic changes in oxygen levels in the coral diffusive boundary layer, and the importance of fermentative metabolism for coral biology.

The plate spacing of sea ice

Columnar sea ice grows with an interface of tiny parallel ice plates, the distance of which is known as plate spacing. While it has been proposed as a fundamental microstructure scale of sea ice, the physics behind its formation has not been fully understood. Here the problem is analysed on the basis of morphological stability theory to propose a model that results in a physically consistent prediction of the relationship between the plate spacing a0 and growth velocity V. The relationship may be divided into two regimes. In the diffusive regime, for V above ≈2 × 10−4 cm s−1 one finds a0 ~ V−2/3 to first order. In the convective regime, the extent of diffusive boundary layer is controlled by solutal convection near the interface, which leads to the proportionality a0 ~ V−1/3. From a comparison to observations it is evident that the plate spacing is predictable over 5 orders of magnitude in the growth velocity, covering the range from fast laboratory ice growth to slow accretion at the bottom of marine ice shelves. The predictability opens new paths towards concise modelling of marine and sea-ice microstructure and physical properties.

Ultimate suppression of thermal transport in amorphous silicon nitride by phononic nanostructure

Engineering the thermal conductivity of amorphous materials is highly essential for the thermal management of future electronic devices. Here, we demonstrate the impact of ultrafine nanostructuring on the thermal conductivity reduction of amorphous silicon nitride (a-Si3N4) thin films, in which the thermal transport is inherently impeded by the atomic disorders. Ultrafine nanostructuring with feature sizes below 20 nm allows us to fully suppress contribution of the propagating vibrational modes (propagons), leaving only the diffusive vibrational modes (diffusons) to contribute to thermal transport in a-Si3N4. A combination of the phonon-gas kinetics model and the Allen-Feldmann theory reproduced the measured results without any fitting parameters. The thermal conductivity reduction was explained as extremely strong diffusive boundary scattering of both propagons and diffusons. These findings give rise to substantial tunability of thermal conductivity of amorphous materials, which enables us to provide better thermal solutions in microelectronic devices.